Early Paleoindian Women, Children, Mobility, and Fertility

If we take the archaeological record at face value, the colonization of unglaciated North America appears to have been very rapid. The highly consistent dating of Clovis archaeological sites (11,500-10,800 B.P.) suggests that this continent was populated within a matter of centuries. To explain the spatial and temporal scales of this phenomenon, it is necessary to invoke both high mobility and high fertility rates during the initial colonization process. However, it is widely believed that it is maladaptive for mobile foragers to have large numbers of offspring due to the costs of transporting those children. Thus, the archaeological record presents us with a paradox. Using a mathematical model that estimates the costs of raising children for mobile hunter-gatherers, this paper asks the question-is high mobility compatible with high fertility? It is concluded that high mobility, if defined as the frequent movement of residential base camps, is quite compatible with high fertility, and that early Paleoindians could indeed have been characterized by high reproductive rates. Therefore, it is quite possible that the Americas were populated very rapidly by highly mobile hunter-gatherers.

Blurton Jones, N.1989The Costs of Children and the Adaptive Scheduling of Births: Towards A Sociobiological Perspective on Demography. In The Sociobiology of Sexual and Reproductive Strategies, edited by Rasa, A. E., Vogel, C., and Voland, E., pp. 265–283. Chapman and Hall, London.

Haynes, C. V. Jr. 1992Contributions of Radiocarbon Dating to the Geochronology of the Peopling of the New World. In Radiocarbon after Four Decades, edited by Taylor, R. E., Long, A., and Kra, S., pp. 355–374. Springer-Verlag, New York.

Hurtado, A. M., and Hill, K. R.1990Seasonality in a Foraging Society: Variation in Diet, Work Effort, Fertility, and Sexual Division of Labor among the Hiwi of Venezuela.Journal of Anthropological Research15: 163–187.

Keeley, L. H.1995Protoagricultural Practices among Hunter-Gatherers: A Cross-Cultural Survey. In Last Hunters First Farmers, edited by Price, T. D. and Gebauer, A.B. pp. 243–272. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe.

Lee, R. B.1972Population Growth and the Beginnings of Sedentary Life among the !Kung Bushmen. In Population Growth: Anthropological Implications, edited by Spooner, B., pp. 319–342. The MIT Press, Cambridge.

Lee, R. B.1979The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Leonhardy, F. C.1966Domebo: A Paleo-lndian Mammoth Kill in the Prarie- Plains. Contributions of the Museum of the Great Plains, Lawton, Oklahoma.

Storck, P.1991Imperialists without a State: The Cultural Dynamics of Early Paleoindian Colonization as Seen from the Great Lakes Region. In Clovis: Origins and Adaptations, edited by Bonnichsen, R. and Turnmire, K.L. pp. 153–162. Center for the Study of the First Americans, Corvallis, Oregon.